The Beginning by Alan Norris

Author:Alan Norris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Medieval England, Vikings, Norsemen, Dragon Ships, Slave, Shield wall, Swords, Sea voyage, Sea battles, King Alfred the Great, Athelney
Publisher: Alan Norris
Published: 2016-10-09T00:00:00+00:00

22

When I awoke, it took several moments for me to decide if I was still alive. Almost every part of my body competed for attention with painful signals. My head throbbed as though fit to burst and my body ached as though I had been caught under a smithy’s hammer.

I decided eventually that these had to be earthly qualities and therefore, somehow, I was still in this brutal world. And I was cold. Soaking wet and very cold. Instinctively, I knew that I mustn’t surrender to the sleepiness that comfortably beckoned me.

Try as I might to open my eyes, they didn’t seem able to move, my whole face felt swollen. Just as it had years before when, as a boy, I’d investigated old Master Styg’s bee hives. The angry little creatures had repeatedly stung my face before I got away. Funny that I should think of the old gardener now I thought. But the best I could manage was a narrow, blurred slit, which only showed me a strip of gloomy greyness peopled with shadowy shapes.

My hands seemed unable to move to relieve my eyelids, almost as if my arms had been broken. But the pain didn’t seem that ugly. They must be tied I thought, and tied very tightly.

My other senses resurrected themselves more slowly. I became aware of a regular movement and almost at the same time, my nose was overwhelmed by the dreadful smell of stale, sick humanity.

The movement seemed to coincide with the sound of waves. The realisation crept into my thoughts that I was somehow, once again at sea, and if the sense of smell served true, it was not on a British fishing boat. The realisation that I was a prisoner flashed into the dullness of my brain and struck sparks of panic in my mind. I tried to move, stand, or at least roll over and became aware of another person close by.

‘Be still and rest yourself, master Ranulf, sir.’

It was the voice of Deaks. Faithful servant, or had he a hand in all this.

‘We have worse to come.’ he added, his voice a hoarse whisper close to my ear.

The memories of our battle came flooding back. Surely we had won. I’d heard the blare of Edmund’s horn, felt the earth tremble from the hammering hooves of his troop of horse. Then came the memories of those red bearded devils that had risen, as if from the very earth, and had thrown themselves upon us, like waves on the rocks, in a final frenzied attack.

I tried to use my voice, but my swollen tongue stuck to my mouth. I shook my head in angry frustration.

‘Where are we?’ I managed in a rough, hollow sounding whisper.

‘You don’t remember then?’ asked Deaks softly.

His trembling hand mopped my face with a damp rag and in a barely audible mumble, he briefly described the final events on the beach.

Edmund’s first charge had started a rout, with many of the Viking warriors drowning in the mud and slime of the river as they tried to regain the decks of the ships that were not burning.

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